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Computational Molecular Biology 2014, Vol. 4, No. 5
http://cmb.biopublisher.ca
1
A Review Open Access
Long Non-coding RNAs: key players in brain and central nervous system
development
Jie Lv
1
, Hui Liu
1
, Hongbo Liu
1
, Qiong Wu
1,
, Yan Zhang
2,
1. School of Life Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150001, China
2. College of Bioinformatics Science and Technology, Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150081, China
Corresponding authors: Qiong Wu (
kigo@hit.edu.cn
) and Yan Zhang (
yanyou1225@gmail.com
)
Computational Molecular Biology, 2014, Vol.4, No.5 doi: 10.5376/cmb.2014.04.0005
Received: 09 Mar., 2014
Accepted: 26 Apr., 2014
Published: 04 Jul., 2014
© 2014 Lv et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Lv et al., 2014, Long Non-coding RNAs: key players in brain and central nervous system development, Computational Molecular Biology, Vol.4, No.5, 1-13
(doi: 10.5376/cmb.2014.04.0005)
Abstract
Regulatory long non-coding RNAs have been emerged as a major contribution of cognitive evolution in mammalian
central nervous system and brain tissues. Though proteins have relatively conserved during evolution, the lncRNAs have evolved
rapidly to cope with essential and widespread cellular regulation, partly by directing generic protein function. Long non-coding
RNAs, highly yet specifically expressed in mammalian brain, provide tissue- and neuronal activity-specific epigenetic and
transcriptional regulation. lncRNAs have been documented to be essential for brain development and be involved in brain related
diseases. We suggest that lncRNAs are important to modulate diverse central nervous system processes and are the major factor that
is important to the brain development, which may be employed to develop novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to treat brain
related diseases. Moreover, animal models with altered lncRNA expressions and high-throughput approaches would help to
understand the mechanisms of lncRNAs in brain development and the etiology of lncRNA-driven human neurological diseases.
Keywords
Long Non-coding RNAs; Central nervous system; Neurogenesis; Brain development; RNA-Seq
Background
The central nervous system (CNS) has been under
high evolution and brain is an advanced animal organs.
CNS includes distinct categories of neuronal and glial
cell types. The amazing cognitive and behavioral
functions in brain may involve in neural networks
comprised by billions of neurons (Graff and Mansuy,
2008). It is still unknown of the molecular
mechanisms about the cooperation among these
neurons, though advances in epigenetic areas have
been increasing (MacDonald and Roskams, 2009).
Based on current view of points and accumulating
evidences, epigenetic factors are considered to affect
mammalian development and cell differentiation.
Furthermore, aberrant epigenetic modification
changes by DNA methylation and histone
modifications have key roles in human diseases (Kaut
et al., 2014; Coppieters et al., 2013; Besingi and
Johansson, 2014; Zykovich et al., 2013; Bryant et al.,
2014; Sanchez-Mut et al., 2013; Robertson, 2005;
MacDonald and Roskams, 2009; Liu et al., 2014; Lv
et al., 2010; Lv et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2011; Zhang et
al., 2010). For example, the enzymes and complexes
such as Polycomb proteins and Trithorax-group
proteins, are basal for developmental processes
(Kouzarides, 2007; Ringrose and Paro, 2007).
However, the mechanisms of loci specificity have
only started to be discovered. Recent evidences
suggested that the chromatin associated proteins are
guided by non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) (Khalil et al.,
2009; Dinger et al., 2008; Mattick, 2009).
The spatio-temporal expression patterns of ncRNAs
seem important for CNS function. ncRNAs are
implicated in a variety of biological processes
including structural (for example, ribosomal RNAs),
regulatory (for example, long and micro non-coding
RNAs) and catalytic processes. In mammalian brain,
ncRNAs are implicated in brain patterning, neuro-
genesis, synaptic and neuron connectivity (Mehler and
Mattick, 2007) and CNS disease (Taft et al., 2010).